The outdoor flea market
by JustAWriterWannaBe
Summary: A super fluffy ficlet. Imagining our favorite partners trying to be normal people and visiting a flea market.


_**Author's Notes:**_  
Thank you for reading my story, I hope you enjoy it.  
It takes place somewhere in the fifth season timeframe. No particular reference points needed. No spoilers.  
By all means, please leave me feedback/reviews on this or any of the other stories I've posted here.

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_**Story Notes:**_  
Just a fluffy little piece of fluff.

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_**Disclaimer:**_  
All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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It's a Sunday, nice and warm and relaxing. Kate convinced Rick to get up early to go and visit the waterfront flea market that pops up on Sundays.

As they wander around the tables of stuff, some good, some truly rubbish, they joke about the things they see and Rick, to flex his mental muscles, gives Kate a short story about anything she picks up and shows him. Kate loves it, it's almost performance art, little tiny stories he creates on the spot, just for her. Once he tells the story, it evaporates into the air and is gone. An audible scent, from him for her.

He loves watching her survey the items on the tables in front of her, sometimes, she explains what something he doesn't recognize is and sometimes, she tells a story related to the item from her life.

Occasionally, he'll just drift into the background and let her be by herself. Never more than a few feet away, he watches her like someone would read a favorite book. Over and over, the same thing, always seeing something new and wonderful each time.

He thought that this next table would be extra fun. He could see a small pile of books on it and recognized one of his there. The anticipation of seeing her reaction to it held him to the spot, he was focused on her face, nothing else. As her hand reached for the familiar books. **That** was when it happened. It came from no where. No one expected it. She was blind-sided! He could see her reel from the impact and surprise. Who was this stranger? "Kate Beckett! How the hell are you doing? I haven't seen you since college! What's it been, ten or twelve years?"

"Rodney! How are you?" Kate sounded sincere but was obviously uncomfortable, she wanted to look for Rick but didn't dare take her eyes off this old acquaintance, he had her attention and she was doing all she could to not get knocked off balance by this person who obviously is one of those who doesn't understand the concept of "personal space".

"Kate, it's been so long, you're looking good! Do you remember Marsha? She was in a couple of our classes too. Marsha! Come say hello to Kate!" he called to his wife "We got married right after graduation."

"Hello Kate!" Marsha said cooly.

"Hi Marsha. How are you?" Rick could read her tells. She didn't remember this woman at all. "Nice to see you again. Rodney tells me you two got married right after graduation, that's wonderful."

"Thank you Kate. How about you? Married yet?" Marsha asks. Rick can see Kate's posture change, just a little, it would be imperceptible to anyone else but he knows Marsha's hit a nerve.

"No Marsha, lots of work and life got in the way, been keeping busy but I'm happy." Kate offers with only a hint of venom.

Marsha, unsatisfied with her last punches, fires a rocket at Kate "So, you here with someone?" she asks looking around.

"Oh my god Kate, you still read that trash?" Rodney suddenly asks pointing to the Nikki Heat book she'd just picked up before he showed up.

"You think it's trash?" Kate asks defensively.

"Marsha, I don't know if you remember, Kate used to have one of this guy's books with her all the time, she always had her nose in it when she wasn't studying." he says to his wife. "I'm surprised you never outgrew them." he says directly to Kate.

"Oh Rodney," Marsha says, "don't be so judgemental. Everyone has their guilty pleasures, her's are just more wild fantasy than real."

"You think these are wild fantasy?" Kate asks holding the book up, her spine stiffening, they're insulting **her** writer-man, this won't go unchallenged.

"Oh come on Kate, who in their right mind would imagine any such a story? Like any of that is based on reality." Marsha adds admonishingly. "Right Rodney?"

"Oh I agree babe." Rodney says putting his arm around his wife.

As she inhales to blast these two heathens for treading on her world, a hand goes around her waist from the left side. "Hiya honey, miss me? I got caught up in what I was doing." Castle says giving her a peck on the cheek and a little lift when he hugged her, making sure her jacket got lifted a little to expose the service weapon in the holster on her belt, obviously for their benefit.

"Oh there you are dear. I wondered where you went. I was just talking to Rodney and Marsha, we went to college together." Rodney, Marsha, this is Rick.

"Hello, nice to meet you, any friend of Kate's is a friend of mine." he offers shaking their hands.

Still a little shocked at seeing the weapon on Kate's belt, Marsha asks "Kate? Is that a gun?" pushing herself into Rodney a bit more to satisfy her need for safety.

"Oh yes, it's my service weapon. I'm a New York Detective." she says confidently. Just to make the point, she shows them her shield.

"Wow! That's incredible!" Marsha says stunned at the revelation.

"You're a cop?" Rodney asks seeking clarification.

Before Kate can answer, Castle chimes in "No Rodney, she's one of very few of an exclusive group, she's a homicide detective, one of the best there is in the city. There's not many people who can achieve that level of accomplishment easily. She was the youngest woman to make detective as a matter of fact."

"That's amazing Kate!" Rodney says, still a little stunned at the idea but obviously thinking this makes her even hotter.

"Ricky, Rodney and Marsha were just telling me how unreal this stuff is." she says waving the Nikki Heat book in front of the other two, keeping the back cover away from her prey.

"You think so?" Castle asks, aware that the sunglasses and ball-cap he's wearing is hiding his identity.

Marsha, first to go for blood speaks "Oh god yes, can you imagine anything so far fetched? I mean, to think that a journalist would find the love of his life in a simple cop, it's preposterous."

"So you've read them?" Castle asks, feeding her some more rope.

"Our book club read one of them, I think it was the first of that series. One of our members was enamored with the other character the guy had created..."

"Storm" He offers

"Yes, that's it, Storm. She so loved him that she thought his next series might be as good." Marsha explains.

"I gather you didn't think so?" Castle asks, giving Kate's waist a smidgen more of a hug so she knows what he's thinking.

"Oh good grief. The stuff is so unbelievable. I think the sex scenes are fun to read but they too, don't have any reality in them, they're just some guy's imagination. No woman could be that good." Marsha finishes, giving Rodney a small hip-bump and a smile.

"Well, I'm sorry that you feel that way." Castle says, slowly taking off his sunglasses and hat while Kate holds up the back cover of the Nikki Heat novel for them to see.

At first they were confused, then they began to think they recognized him, then they looked at the cover, then him, then the cover, then him, then each other, then him again. "You're..."

"Richard Castle at your service." he says grinning wide.

"You ... you're ... Kate?" Rodney attempts to say now obviously seeking confirmation but unable to form sentences.

"Um hum." she nods smiling wide.

"Holy crap!" Marsha exclaims "You're really him!" obviously taken by the excitement and forgetting how low her opinion is of his work. "Oh my god! I can't wait to tell Maria-bella in book club! She'll be so jealous."

"Maria-bella huh?" Castle says, looking up and pondering the name "Kate, think that'd make a good character name? I like it, it's sort of different."

"I like it Rick, it has that old-world feel to it, very traditional." She says putting her arm through his.

"So, back to Nikki Heat Marsha, you aren't a fan?" Castle asks.

"No, sorry Mr Castle, never felt it was based on reality." She says only slightly apologetic.

"That's too bad, I thought I did a good job of capturing her." He says then, almost as an after thought "Marsha, you **do** know that I based Nikki Heat on Kate here. She's the NYPD homicide detective I've been following to create Nikki."

Kate does nothing but smile.

At this point, you can see the two of them, Marsha and Rodney, their minds spiraling out of control, gawking, unable to process the enormity of what they've just heard. After a moment Marsha gains a bit of footing "So, you" pointing to Beckett "are Nikki Heat?" she asks quietly.

"Well, Nikki is fiction but I'm his muse so, yeah, I am." she says smiling at Castle and hugging his arm.

"**Mostly** fiction dear, some of her is real." Castle says giving Kate a squeeze and leaning into her a bit to emphasize their closeness "The truth is, Nikki Heat, for all that you see on the page is a shadow of Kate here. I wish I could do more to Nikki to do justice to Kate but that's not going to happen soon, I like to think I'm a good writer, twenty six best sellers but still, I know I can't capture all of this woman and put her into a single character."

Rodney and Marsha look at each other, obviously in silent screams of "Pinch me!"

"Kate, let me have that book, are there any others there?" Castle says taking the book from her.

"Yeah Rick, two more." she says picking them up.

Opening the book to the front, Rick signs the book to Marsha and Rodney and hands it to her. He takes the other two books and signs them also "To Maria-bella, the woman with such a lovely name." then signs it with his usual flourish.

"Hey Kate, you need some practice signing autographs." He says and hands the books and pen to her, obviously to autograph them too.

"Aw Rick, you know I hate this." she protests as she does it anyway and hands the books back to Rick.

"Marsha, please give these to your friend Maria-bella for me." He asks offering the books to her.

"I will Mr Castle, thank you so much!" Marsha crows while Rodney, just looks on stunned.

"Tell you what Marsha," he says pulling out his wallet "Oh, sorry Marsha, one second. Kate, here" he hands her his money clip "please pay for those three books, and leave him a nice tip." now returning his attention to his wallet, "Marsha, here's my agent's card, please email her a note telling her where you met me and I'll arrange to get your book club the next Nikki Heat novel that will be coming out soon."

"Oh thank you! Thank you very much Mr Castle!" Marsha is bubbling with excitement now and Rodney is just standing there agape.

"Hey Rick." Kate calls as she returns to his side "What the hell is this? Since when did you decide to up your pocket money to five grand?" she challenges as she slides the money clip and her hand into his pants pocket.

"Kate, come on, what's the big deal? I decided that two grand wasn't enough for contingencies so I carry five now." he answers her as if he really has to explain himself to her, obviously cheap theatre for Rodney and Marsha.

Kate, decides it's time to move on "Rick, we have a lunch date, we should get going, we don't want to be late."

"Oh goodness." Rick says looking at his watch and feigning surprise "I didn't realize how late it has gotten. Yes, please, we don't want to be late again." then turning to the two "Marsha, Rodney, it's been a pleasure meeting you." he says courteously shaking their hands.

"Rodney, it's been great seeing you again, and you too Marsha. Richard and I have to get going, we've got a meeting with the producers for the next Nikki Heat movie and they get cantankerous when he's late." She says shaking their hands.

"Nice seeing you again Kate, and nice meeting you Mr Castle" Marsha says.

"Kate, it's been a pleasure, maybe we'll bump into you again some time." Rodney offers attempting to recover some modicum of normalcy.

"Thanks! Marsha, don't forget to write his agent." Kate says behind her as they start to walk away arm in arm.

After a few moments, Rick has to say something "Well?"

"Well what?" she asks coyly.

"Katherine Beckett, you **never** do that sort of thing. What happened?" He asks.

"Okay.. 'Ricky'" she says emphasising the name humorously "It started out as just the usual awkward 'haven't seen you in a long time' crap until they started to dump on my favorite author." she punctuates the last word with a slight hip bump.

"Can't have that." he says smiling wide.

"Nope, not allowed in **my** presence." she says claiming her ground.

"Unless you do it?" He asks.

"Duh! Of course **I** can do it. I'm his muse." she says squeezing his arm as they wander through the throngs of people.

"Ah okay, that's different then."

Affirming his statement quickly "You're darned tootin' it's different! **Mine!**" she says laughing.

"Well then I guess he'll have to allow it. Of course, you might have to negotiate with his daughter, I hear she's no lightweight." The smile on his face wide and bright, if she could see his eyes behind the sunglasses, he's twinkling the way she adores.

"Naaa. She's on my side. Already converted her. His goose is cooked from all angles."

"Well, I'd like to say I pity the poor bastard but I suspect he couldn't be happier." He says squeezing her hand on his arm.

"Ya think?" Her question almost a statement.

"Oh yeah, how couldn't he be? Haven't you seen the love letters he's written her? I hear he's working on another right now."

"I see. Must be a real goner." she laughs back with him.

"You have **no** idea." is all he can say.

"Castle?"

"Yes dear?"

"Let's go home." she says smiling.

"Are you sure?"

"**Now writer-man!**" she emphasises the point by pulling hard on his arm smiling wide "If not, the handcuffs go back into the night-stand." and with that their relaxing Sunday jaunt turned into a hurried scramble back to the loft.

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**# # # The End # # #**


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